He turned a lap of 176.043 mph Saturday to win the pole at Pocono Raceway. The winless Montoya won his first pole since April 2011 in Richmond, Va. He hasn’t won a race since Aug. 8, 2010 at Watkins Glen.

The pole was a needed lift for Montoya and his No. 42 Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team. He’s 21st in the standings and has yet to drive to a top-five finish. He only has two top 10s and has continued a string of mediocre seasons since qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship in 2009.

Montoya admitted he was “shocked” he beat out Pocono qualifying stars such as Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne to lead the field in today’s 400-mile race.

“We know we’re working in the right direction, we know we’re working hard, we feel the cars are getting a little better,” Montoya said, “but to go out there and get a pole. I just went through the hauler and all the engineers, they’re all happy and laughing. I’m used to long faces, a lot of long faces, a lot of stressful faces. We needed something like this as a company. This is big for us.”

Hamlin turned a lap of 175.795 and qualified second. It’s his 12th top-10 start in 14 career Pocono races.

Montoya joined NASCAR in 2007 after a successful career in open wheel that included an Indianapolis 500 victory and a Monaco Grand Prix win. His 2009 season where he finished eighth in the standings turned out to be a one-year blip instead of a breakthrough into regular championship contention.

His team has undergone massive turnover, including new crew chief Chris Heroy, but it didn’t bring the No. 42 Chevrolet any better results. He hasn’t finished better than 21st in any of his last three races and has finished better than 14th once in his last 11 races.

“I think we’re quite a ways away from as a company where we want to get to,” he said. “We want to be able to come every weekend knowing you can beat a Hendrick, beat a Gibbs. That’s our goal.”

Spencer Massey led the Top Fuel field, and teammate Ron Capps topped the Funny Car class.

Johnson powered his Mopar Dodge Avenger to the No. 1 position with his 6.554-second pass at 211.66 mph Friday. He won the first two stops of the Western Swing in Denver and Sonoma and will look to become the eighth driver to sweep the three-race swing when eliminations start today.

In Top Fuel, Massey ran the quickest pass of the weekend during the Friday session with a run of 3.837 at 319.60. Capps also maintained the No. 1 spot in Funny Car with his Friday night run of 4.119 at 298.47. Capps has three victories in seven final-round appearances at Pacific Raceways.

Nationwide

NEWTON, Iowa – Elliott Sadler rebounded from the disappointment of his jumped-restart penalty last week in Indianapolis to win the NASCAR Nationwide Race at Iowa Speedway.

Sadler denied Ricky Stenhouse Jr. a fourth consecutive victory at Iowa Speedway and increased his lead in the series standings to 18 points over Austin Dillon.